Jiwon Ban , Camille Msall , Ashli-Ann Douglas , Bethany Rittle-Johnson , Elida V. Laski
{"title":"Knowing what they know: Preschool teachers’ knowledge of math skills and its relation to instruction","authors":"Jiwon Ban , Camille Msall , Ashli-Ann Douglas , Bethany Rittle-Johnson , Elida V. Laski","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105996","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105996","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Math experiences during the preschool years play an important role in children’s later math learning. Preschool teachers exhibit considerable variability in the amount and types of mathematics activities they engage in with their students; one potentially important source of these individual differences is adults’ knowledge of early math development. The current study aimed to describe preschool teachers’ knowledge of numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric skills developed in preschool and its relation to their reported mathematics instruction. Participants (<em>N</em> = 83) completed a survey in which they judged whether particular early math skills could be observed in typically developing 4-year-olds in the United States and reported their frequency of engaging in different math instructional activities. Pre- and in-service preschool teachers’ knowledge varied across the different domains (i.e., numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric) of mathematical thinking, but their reported frequency of instruction did not. Teachers who were found to be more accurate in their knowledge of early math development were more likely to report higher frequency of math instruction; looking specifically at the domains, the strength of association between knowledge and instruction was the strongest for numeracy. Such findings highlight the possibility that supporting preschool teachers’ knowledge of the range of math skills their students can be developing may be one component of improving early math teaching and learning.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141564847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Valerie P. Bambha , Sarah Surrain , Tricia A. Zucker , Yusra Ahmed , Diana Leyva
{"title":"The intersection of parent questions, child skills, and activity context in informal science, technology, engineering, and math learning","authors":"Valerie P. Bambha , Sarah Surrain , Tricia A. Zucker , Yusra Ahmed , Diana Leyva","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106000","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106000","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Adult verbal input occurs frequently during parent–child interactions. However, few studies have considered how parent language varies across informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) activities. In this study, we examined how open and closed parent questions (a) differed across three STEM activities and (b) related to math, science, and vocabulary knowledge in their preschool-aged children. A total of 173 parents and their preschool children (<em>M</em><sub>age</sub> = 4 years) from lower socioeconomic households were video-recorded participating in three STEM-related activities: (a) a pretend grocery store activity, (b) a bridge-building challenge, and (c) a book read about a science topic. Parent questions were categorized as open or closed according to the presence of key question terms. Results indicate that the three activities elicited different frequencies of parent open and closed questions, with the grocery store activity containing the most open and closed questions. Children’s science knowledge was predicted by the frequency and proportion of parent <em>open</em> questions during the book read. These results enhance our understanding of the role of parent questions in young children’s language environments in different informal learning contexts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141555715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ege Kamber, Madi K. Maguire, Edyta K. Tehrani, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E.V. Mahy
{"title":"The impact of strategies on young children’s saving for the future","authors":"Ege Kamber, Madi K. Maguire, Edyta K. Tehrani, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E.V. Mahy","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105995","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105995","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The ability to save resources for future use, or <em>saving,</em> begins to emerge around 3 years of age, but children show low rates of saving during the preschool years. Thus, several strategies have been used to improve preschoolers’ saving, such as providing a prompt, budgeting, increasing psychological distance, and simulating the future. The current study investigated (a) the development of saving in early childhood, (b) the impact of several saving strategies on children’s saving (i.e., budgeting, tracking expenses, and psychological distance), and (c) whether the effectiveness of the strategies changed with age. Here, 3- to 5-year-old Canadian children (N = 254) completed the Saving Board Game, and their parents completed the saving subscale of the Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire. In the Saving Board Game, children were randomly assigned to one of the five strategies: (a) control, (b) budgeting, (c) tracking, (d) adult perspective, or (e) child perspective. An analysis of covariance with age, strategy, and response option order (as a covariate) showed a main effect of age, with 5-year-olds saving more than 3-year-olds. There was no effect of strategy or an interaction between strategy and age on children’s token saving. Parent-reported child saving was positively correlated with children’s Saving Board Game performance only in the control condition. We consider why these strategies failed to increase children’s saving.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141499293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David Giguere , Michelle K. Tulloch , Cynthia Core , Erika Hoff
{"title":"Early skills that predict English reading ability: A longitudinal study of bilingual children from 5 to 10 years","authors":"David Giguere , Michelle K. Tulloch , Cynthia Core , Erika Hoff","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105993","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105993","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite substantial research, the contribution of oral language skills acquired in Spanish to Spanish–English bilingual children’s acquisition of English reading skill is unclear. The current study addressed this question with data on the oral language and pre-literacy skills of 101 Spanish–English bilingual learners at 5 years of age and their English word reading (i.e., decoding) and reading comprehension skills at 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years. Separate multilevel models using English language, Spanish language, and pre-literacy skills as predictors of these outcomes identified English phonological awareness, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts of print knowledge as positive predictors of word reading. A final model including all these significant predictors found only Spanish phonological awareness and concept of print to be significant predictors. Significant predictors of reading comprehension in separate models were English vocabulary, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts about print. In the final model, only English vocabulary and Spanish phonological awareness predicted English reading comprehension. These findings provide evidence that phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading across languages, consistent with the common underlying proficiency model of bilingual reading development. The finding that only English vocabulary predicts English reading comprehension suggests that vocabulary knowledge is not part of a common underlying proficiency but is language specific in its value to reading ability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001334/pdfft?md5=88e2f51d698ec08400e299e47af44799&pid=1-s2.0-S0022096524001334-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141471689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Oliver Scott Curry , Chloe San Miguel , Mehmet Necip Tunç
{"title":"The costs and benefits of kindness for kids","authors":"Oliver Scott Curry , Chloe San Miguel , Mehmet Necip Tunç","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105987","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105987","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>What do children think makes an act kind? Which kind acts are children likely to perform? Previous research with adults suggests that the kindness of acts depends largely on the benefit provided and to a lesser extent on the cost incurred, and that adults are more likely to perform low-cost, high-benefit kind acts. In the current study, children (9–12 years, <em>n</em> = 945) and teens (13–17 years, <em>n</em> = 939) rated the benefit, cost, kindness, and likelihood of performing 173 acts of kindness, and adults (18+ years, <em>n</em> = 891) rated how beneficial, costly, kind, and likely the acts would be for young people to perform. Among children and teens, benefit but <em>not</em> cost predicted the kindness of acts, and benefit positively predicted, but cost negatively predicted, performance (for “kindness quotients” of 61% and 65%, respectively). Among adults, benefit <em>and</em> cost predicted the kindness of acts, and cost, but <em>not</em> benefit, negatively predicted performance (for a kindness quotient of 59%). The results for children and teens are similar to those from previous research with adults; however, adults are more sensitive to cost when rating kindness, are less sensitive to benefit when rating performance by young people, and are less likely to think young people will perform acts of kindness overall. In practical terms, the results suggest that recommending cost-effective acts may be the best way to encourage children to be kinder.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141451927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xin Chen , Yinghe Chen , Xiao Yu , Jun Wei , Xiujie Yang
{"title":"The impact of family socioeconomic status on parental involvement and student engagement during COVID-19 in promoting academic achievement: A longitudinal study in Chinese children","authors":"Xin Chen , Yinghe Chen , Xiao Yu , Jun Wei , Xiujie Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105992","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105992","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>With a three-wave longitudinal design, the current study examined the impact of family socioeconomic status (SES) on parental involvement and student engagement in promoting children’s academic achievement during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We recruited data from 246 mother–primary school student dyads, and the mean age of children at Wave 1 was 10.57 ± 0.97 years (range = 9–13 years). The academic achievement of these children was measured both before and after school closures. Family SES, parental involvement, and student engagement were assessed during the school closures. The results indicated that family SES could predict children’s later academic achievement after accounting for their prior academic achievement and other demographics (i.e., the significant total effect in the model). Moreover, parental involvement and student engagement played chain-mediating roles in the effect of family SES on children’s later academic achievement. Neither parent involvement nor student involvement alone mediated the relationships between family SES and subsequent academic achievement. Suggestions are provided to minimize the negative impact of low family SES on children’s academic achievement during pandemics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141451928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring relative strengths in people with Down syndrome: Spatial thinking and its role in mathematics","authors":"Su Morris , Emily K. Farran , Katie Gilligan-Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105986","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105986","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There is convincing evidence that training spatial abilities leads to improved mathematics performance in typically developing (TD) children. However, a lack of information on mathematical development and spatial–mathematical associations in people with Down syndrome (DS) hinders the translation of these interventions. Here, we established developmental trajectories of mathematics and explored whether spatial ability predicts attainment on different mathematics measures in individuals with DS. Participants with DS (<em>n</em> = 36; ages 9–35 years) and TD children (<em>n</em> = 132; ages 4–11 years) completed three groups of tasks: spatial tasks assessing different subdomains of spatial thinking; mathematics tasks assessing early mathematics skills, mathematical reasoning, arithmetic, and geometry; and IQ tasks. The developmental trajectories of mathematics performance against mental age revealed similar starting points of the trajectories and similar rates of development for DS and TD groups. Furthermore, after controlling for verbal skills, spatial skills explained 5.8% to 18.1% of the variation in mathematical performance across different mathematics tasks, and the pattern of spatial–mathematical relations was similar for DS and mental age-matched TD groups. This shows that mathematical development in DS groups appears to mirror that in TD children, indicative of delay only. Strong spatial–mathematical relations were observed for individuals with DS, like those seen for TD participants. This is the vital preliminary knowledge needed to support the design and use of spatial intervention for improving mathematics in individuals with DS.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001267/pdfft?md5=444a98aaab321930340c74278ed53c7d&pid=1-s2.0-S0022096524001267-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141451926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel A. Scheibe , Lauren Wyatt , Charles J. Fitzsimmons , Marta K. Mielicki , Lauren K. Schiller , Clarissa A. Thompson
{"title":"Impacts of number lines and circle visual displays on caregivers’ fraction understanding","authors":"Daniel A. Scheibe , Lauren Wyatt , Charles J. Fitzsimmons , Marta K. Mielicki , Lauren K. Schiller , Clarissa A. Thompson","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105983","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105983","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Playful fraction picture books, together with math instructional content called “back matter,” may promote fraction learning, which is crucial because fractions are difficult and often disliked content. However, open questions remain regarding how different types of back matter may affect caregivers’ ability to use fraction picture books as a teaching tool. The current study offers a novel investigation into how back matter affects caregivers’ (<em>N</em> = 160) fraction understanding (i.e., equivalence and arithmetic) and subjective beliefs about math using a pretest/posttest design. We contrasted existing back matter text with research-informed back matter text crossed with either circle area or number line visual displays. Caregivers’ performance improved from pretest to posttest in the Researcher-Generated + Circles condition (fraction equivalence) and in the Existing + Circles, Researcher-Generated + Circles, and Researcher-Generated + Number Lines conditions (fraction arithmetic). In addition, caregivers were aware of their learning; they predicted improvements in their fraction arithmetic performance over time. These findings suggest that brief interventions, such as back matter in children’s picture books, may improve adults’ fraction understanding.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sanmya Salomão, Ana Catarina Canário, Orlanda Cruz
{"title":"Episodic foresight, episodic memory, and executive functions in children engaged with Child Protective Services: The role of cumulative risk","authors":"Sanmya Salomão, Ana Catarina Canário, Orlanda Cruz","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105985","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105985","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous studies have determined that exposure to risk and adversities may impair children’s cognitive abilities. In particular, children engaged with Child Protective Services (CPS) seem to be at greater risk for enhanced detrimental effects resulting from the cumulative risk factors to which they are exposed. However, little is known about children’s future thinking when they face adverse circumstances, and it is not clear how the associations among episodic foresight abilities, episodic memory, and executive functions work with children under such circumstances. The current study describes the episodic foresight abilities of CPS-involved school-aged children, its association with other cognitive abilities, and how this association is affected by the exposure to cumulative risk and adversity factors. Episodic foresight, episodic memory, executive functions, and a composite of cumulative risk factors were analyzed in a sample of 95 school-aged children engaged with CPS in Portugal. Results suggest the detrimental effect of cumulative risk on the episodic foresight abilities of CPS-involved children. Episodic memory and cognitive flexibility were significant predictors of episodic foresight abilities, and cumulative risk exposure moderated the relation between episodic memory and episodic foresight. The current study provides a better understanding of the influences of multiple adversities on CPS-involved children’s episodic foresight abilities and related cognitive outcomes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001255/pdfft?md5=912713a6c55761f5ab605b72d4c354fa&pid=1-s2.0-S0022096524001255-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Malleability of the sense of bodily self in early childhood: 5- and 6-year-old children children show the enfacement illusion","authors":"Konstantin Steinmassl, Markus Paulus","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105990","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105990","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The mechanisms underlying the developing sense of bodily self are debated. Whereas some scholars stress the role of sensory factors, others propose the importance of contextual factors. By manipulating multisensory stimulation and social familiarity with the other person, we explored two factors that are proposed to relate to young children’s developing sense of bodily self. Including an adult sample allowed us to investigate age-related differences of the malleability of the bodily self. To this end, the study implemented an enfacement illusion with children (<em>N</em> = 64) and adults (<em>N</em> = 33). Participants were exposed to one trial with synchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation and one trial with asynchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation—either with a stranger or with the mother as the other person. A self-recognition task using morph videos of self and other and an enfacement questionnaire were implemented as dependent measures. Results revealed evidence for the presence of the enfacement effect in children in both measures. The identity of the other person had a significant effect on the self-recognition task. Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect was significantly smaller in the caregiver condition. No significant differences between children and adults emerged. Our results demonstrate the role of both multisensory stimulation and contextual—here social familiarity—factors for the construction and development of a bodily self. The study provides developmental science with a novel approach to the bodily self by showing the validity of the self-recognition task in a child sample. Overall, the study supports proposals that the sense of bodily self is malleable early in development.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001309/pdfft?md5=540e4ef9b0d83d17e00b9dd0f9b00e91&pid=1-s2.0-S0022096524001309-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}